Raina vs SHIELD
by bhut
Summary: Post ep 2x05. Bobbi and Lance take Raina to a safe house. Raina isn't very impressed. Or grateful.


**Raina vs. S.H.I.E.L.D.**

 _Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Marvel™._

"...And this," Bobbi Morse told Raina, as and Hunter dropped the 'girl in the flower dress' in an S.H.I.E.L.D. safe house (located in the Canadian province of British Columbia, BTW), "is your new safe house!"

Raina blinked and looked around. For the last few days, ever since her not-encounter with Jemma Simmons, she had been plagued by some vague, disturbing dreams. They were not nightmares, per se, but rather, Raina for some reason could not remember them and this bothered her. Usually, she could remember her dreams well enough – not that she had them too often in the first place – but sometimes she could not, and that bothered her, rather like an itch that she could not scratch and as such it bothered her.

"You were saying?" she responded instead, having no intention of sharing her issues with the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents (or anyone else, really – after all, Cal knew about them, but did not really care, why other people should?).

"This is your new safe house," Bobbi repeated, seemingly undaunted by Raina's less than friendly attitude. "You'll be safe here from your Hydra ex-buddies-"

Raina sighed, in a manner not unlike how Bobbi herself did, whenever she was exasperated. "Ok, let's try this in a way that a big blonde Barbie with bouncy boobs can understand," the smaller woman sighed. "I am not Hydra, and never was. John Garrett had tricked me into thinking that he really _could_ see the future while he could not, not really. If I knew this beforehand, it all would've played out differently."

"Really?" Bobbi had a canny look in her eyes, one that Raina did not care much for. "How so?"

"Why should I tell you?" Raina shut down instead. "I'm not your ally, you're not mine."

"And that's an interesting point," Bobbi pressed on. "S.H.I.E.L.D. _does_ want to help you against Hydra; but we're short-staffed at the moment, so odds are that for the moment we won't be able to help you fully, as in providing you full-time protection-"

"That's ok," Raina shrugged. "You don't really need to give me anything; I don't need anything from you, just have a Hydra tracker removed from me, and that you won't do. Hypocrites, the lot of you. S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra are two different organizations? Please! You've been one and the same for years, and you will rejoin each other in the future yet, I bet."

"That's a very stupid thing to say," Bobbi's face darkened. "You require S.H.I.E.L.D.'s help-"

Something burst in Raina; some sort of a strange feeling in her stomach that had been bothering her ever since she found herself in company of Bobbi and Lance and their easy, friendly banter with each other. For some reason, listening to them talk, made her annoyed – almost as annoyed as when she thought about Skye and the latter's stupid denials...

"I do not!" Raina 'grabbed' something in her mindscape, (so to speak), and stood tall. "All I needed was a tracker removed and for Skye – or Daisy – to embrace her destiny as I have embraced mine. The two of us, we are destined for power and glory; when the time comes, your 'Shydra' chimera will fall before us, Barbie-girl!"

"I see," Bobbi spoke, or rather snapped in a voice that was not friendly at all – quite the opposite. "Then I think that Lance and I should go, so not to disturb your greatness?"

For a brief moment Raina felt as if she should apologize to the blonde woman, but dismissed the feeling. "Do what you will," she spoke, pointedly, turning her back to them. "I cannot throw both of you out, you're stronger than I am, and besides, I need to pee. However, if you try to peek at me – the way you two were talking all the way here make me suspect that the two of you need to see a very good sex therapist – I'll scream and bring the whole neighborhood down." She walked into the bathroom and closed the door.

Several moments later the front door of the safe house slammed shut. Raina took a deep breath that she did not know she was holding. For some reason she felt lighter now, as if a weight of some sort had fallen off her shoulders. (She also felt the urge to call back the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and to apologize to them for her behavior, but she ignored it.)

/

"I must confess – I really got it wrong, sir," Bobbi later told director Coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D. "I honestly assumed that Raina, among other things, would have a very strong self-preservation instinct, especially when dealing with Hydra. I mean, yes, there's arrogance, but of the deflatable kind-"

"But there isn't," Coulson interrupted the blonde. Bobbi just shrugged and pointed to her and Hunter's reports as if they held the answer – and perhaps they did.

"There isn't," Bobbi finally was coaxed into finally answering by Coulson properly. "Raina is self-centered, but there isn't any self-preservation in her – but plenty of delusions."

Coulson nodded. Until Lance and Bobbi's unsuccessful return from B.C., he actually felt a bit of grudging admiration for Raina's spunk, when she had confronted him and the others over Simmons' and Skye; earlier in the year, during the situation with Centipede and Garrett, he felt that Raina was somewhat sympathetic to him and his team, and so he had theorized, that if given a chance, Raina could become a helpful and friendly ally or asset to the agency... or perhaps even an agent, for S.H.I.E.L.D. was still short on human resources, and Coulson didn't object to giving people second chances, but...

But Bobbi's (and unofficially his) assessment of Raina's character was wrong. When given an opportunity, Raina revealed herself not so much ungrateful, (S.H.I.E.L.D. could deal with ingratitude in ways of varying severity), as delusional and insane – and S.H.I.E.L.D. did not really like to work with insane people for a variety of reasons, including their unpredictability and general untrustworthiness.

"So be it," he muttered, as he put the rough draft of the initial plan of dealing (and recruiting) Raina into the shredder. "For the while, we let Raina roam free – sooner or later Hydra will come for her, and we will capture them instead. And when this is over...we'll cure her."

"You'll give her a new personality via T.A.H.I.T.I.?" Bobbi asked quietly.

Coulson shrugged. "We'll be restoring her sanity instead," he told his underling.

Bobbi just shrugged and said nothing, the fragments of her initial, happy plan of dealing with Raina, still floating around in the waste bin.

End


End file.
